The European Commission regards this new legislation in the former communist countries as an existential threat to the EU’s free flow of goods, people and capital — the single market, in short — and struck back with infringement cases intended to preserve its sanctity.

In Bulgaria, for example, the European Commission launched an infringement proceeding last year over a law that investors should be resident for more than five years before they can buy farmland. In Romania, Brussels objected this year to rules that supermarkets should source 51 percent of fresh produce from local suppliers. There has been no decision on either case.

It is in Poland, the regional heavyweight, that the battle over respect for the single market is fought the hardest. Brussels has already ordered the authorities to halt a tax on the retail sector on the grounds it grants a selective advantage to small, local shops with a low turnover over big foreign-owned supermarkets. All eyes are now focusing on how the European Commission will react to a growing chorus of complaints in Poland over the rights of foreigners to buy farmland.

The world wars, genocides and extremist ideologies of the 20th century are remembered very differently across Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, resulting sometimes in fierce memory disputes. This book investigates the complexity and contention of the layers of memory of the troubled 20th century in the region. Written by an international group of scholars from a diversity of disciplines, the chapters approach memory disputes in methodologically innovative ways, studying representations and negotiations of disputed pasts in different media, including monuments, museum exhibitions, individual and political discourse and electronic social media. Analyzing memory disputes in various local, national and transnational contexts, the chapters demonstrate the political power and social impact of painful and disputed memories. The book brings new insights into current memory disputes in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. It contributes to the understanding of processes of memory transmission and negotiation across borders and cultures in Europe, emphasizing the interconnectedness of memory with emotions, mediation and politics.

Our in-depth investigation uncovers the anti-refugee propaganda machine that fostered xenophobia in Hungary, derailed the E.U. response to the refugee crisis and is spreading to the Czech Republic and beyond.

We take you behind the scenes of Refugees Deeply’s investigative reporting on the anti-refugee propaganda machine that fostered xenophobia in Hungary, derailed the E.U. response to the refugee crisis and is spreading to the Czech Republic and beyond.

“Hatred of refugees has fundamentally changed the town” – Hungarian village succumbs to state propaganda

Residents of the Tolna county village of #Őcsény in southwest Hungary held an emergency village assembly Monday evening. So many members of the roughly 2,000-person community attended that not everyone was able to fit into the community center. They had come together to discuss what they considered an imminent threat to their village: the arrival of several refugees, mostly women and children, for a few days of vacation.

Free movement between the US and Mexico - the hottest of topics in the 2016 US presidential campaign - is not just a human issue. What would the construction of a wall mean for animals that live near the border?

In 1996, #Botswana erected an 83-mile fence along its border with Namibia. The goal was to protect domestic cattle from the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease. Within a year, though, the barrier had snared five giraffes, one elephant, several antelopes and numerous other wild animals.

“It’s just an arbitrary line that’s drawn across a very diverse region,” Millis said, standing next to Sedgwick on the gusty ridge. “It severs and destroys habitat for wildlife. We have animals that aren’t able to move across the border.”

The list, put together by a team led by Dr. Gerardo J. Ceballos González of National Autonomous University of Mexico, includes 42 species of amphibians, 160 reptiles, 452 bird species and 187 mammals. Well-known species in the region include the jaguar, Sonoran pronghorn, North American river otter and black bear.

Border Security Fencing and Wildlife: The End of the Transboundary Paradigm in Eurasia?

The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures.

Mexican conservationists are alarmed over Trump’s wall, with the loss of connectivity threatening already stressed bison, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bears and other animals. About one-third of the border, roughly 700 miles, already has fencing; President Trump has been pushing a controversial plan to fence the remainder. A wall running the entire nearly 2,000-mile frontier from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, conservationists warn, would be catastrophic for borderland ecosystems and many wildlife species, undoing years of environmental cooperation between the two countries to protect animals that must move freely or die. The wall is currently a key bargaining chip, and a sticking point, in ongoing immigration legislation negotiations taking place this week in Congress. Also expected this week: a federal court ruling on whether the administration can legally waive environmental laws to expedite border wall construction.

The national debate about border security doesn’t often dwell on the natural environment, but hundreds of miles of public lands, including six national parks, sit along the U.S.-Mexico border. What will happen to these lands — and the wildlife and plants they protect — if a wall or additional fences and barriers are built along the frontier?

US spending bill requires “an analysis, following consultation with the Secretary of the Interior and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, of the environmental impacts, including on wildlife, of the construction and placement of physical barriers” (p 677)

Last week Congress voted to appropriate some monies to build new fortifications along the United States–Mexico border, but border activists in the Rio Grande Valley say the fight against President Donald Trump’s border wall is far from over.

The nearly $1.6 billion in border wall funding included in the omnibus spending bill that Trump signed Friday provides for the construction of some 33 miles of new walls, all in Texas’s ecologically important Rio Grande Valley. Those walls will tear through communities, farms and ranchland, historic sites, and thousands of acres of protected wildlife habitat, while creating flooding risks on both sides of the border. But far from admitting defeat, border activists have already begun mapping out next steps to pressure Congress to slow down or even halt the wall’s construction.

State attorney general, environmental group to appeal decision on Trump’s border wall

A ruling by a San Diego federal judge allowing construction of President Donald Trump’s border wall to go ahead will be appealed by two entities that opposed it, including the state Attorney General.

Both the Center for Biological Diversity and Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed formal notices of appeal on Monday seeking to reverse a decision in February from U.S District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel. The judge ruled that the Trump administration did not abuse its discretion in waiving environmental laws in its rush to begin border wall projects along the southwest border.

The center had said after the ruling it would appeal, and Becerra also hinted the state would seek appellate court review at the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The notices declare an intent to appeal. They do not outline arguments to be made on appeal or why each group believe that Curiel got it wrong.

In a prepared statement Becerra said, “When we said that a medieval wall along the U.S.-Mexico border does not belong in the 21st century, we meant it. There are environmental and public health laws in place, and we continue to believe that the Trump Administration is violating those laws. We will not stand idly by. We are committed to protecting our people, our values and our economy from federal overreach.”

The lawsuits challenged a law that allowed the federal government not to comply with environmental and other laws and regulations when building border security projects. They argued the law was outdated and Congress never intended for it to be an open-ended waiver for all border projects, and contended it violated constitutional provisions of separation of powers and states’ rights.

In his decision Curiel said both that the law was constitutional and it gave the Department of Homeland Security wide latitude over border security.

Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said in response to the Curiel ruling that the administration was pleased DHS “can continue this important work vital to our nation’s interest.”

“Border security is paramount to stemming the flow of illegal immigration that contributes to rising violent crime and to the drug crisis, and undermines national security,” O’Malley said.

Border Fences and their Impacts on Large Carnivores, Large Herbivores and Biodiversity: An International Wildlife Law Perspective

Fences, walls and other barriers are proliferating along international borders on a global scale. These border fences not only affect people, but can also have unintended but important consequences for wildlife, inter alia by curtailing migrations and other movements, by fragmenting populations and by causing direct mortality, for instance through entanglement. Large carnivores and large herbivores are especially vulnerable to these impacts. This article analyses the various impacts of border fences on wildlife around the world from a law and policy perspective, focusing on international wildlife law in particular. Relevant provisions from a range of global and regional legal instruments are identified and analysed, with special attention for the Bonn Convention on Migratory Species and the European Union Habitats Directive.

Border Security Fencing and Wildlife: The End of the Transboundary Paradigm in Eurasia?

The ongoing refugee crisis in Europe has seen many countries rush to construct border security fencing to divert or control the flow of people. This follows a trend of border fence construction across Eurasia during the post-9/11 era. This development has gone largely unnoticed by conservation biologists during an era in which, ironically, transboundary cooperation has emerged as a conservation paradigm. These fences represent a major threat to wildlife because they can cause mortality, obstruct access to seasonally important resources, and reduce effective population size. We summarise the extent of the issue and propose concrete mitigation measures.

The National Butterfly Center, a 100-acre wildlife center and botanical garden in South Texas, provides a habitat for more than 100 species of butterflies.

It also sits directly in the path of the Trump administration’s proposed border wall.

The federal spending bill approved in September includes $1.6 billion in 2019 for construction of the wall. In October, the Department of Homeland Security issued a waiver to 28 laws protecting public lands, wildlife and the environment to clear the way for construction to proceed.

Ukrainians accounted for the biggest share of the 1 400 illegal border crossings on the Europe’s eastern borders in the second quarter of this year, but only 10 cases were related to irregular migration, according to Frontex’s Eastern European Borders Quarterly report.

The rest of the illegal crossings by the citizens of Ukraine were in large part linked to smuggling.

Ukrainians, Georgians, Moldovans and other citizens of the CIS countries accounted for 47 percent of the illegal crossings. The remaining 53 percent of the detections involved nationals from outside the region, especially citizens of Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Detections of illegal crossings between border crossing points in the April-June period increased 82 percent from the previous quarter and 74 percent from the same three-month period of 2014. Larger numbers of Vietnamese and Afghan migrants accounted for the increase, while the number of Syrian nationals fell from the first three months of the year.

It is getting crowded in the world of Eastern European strategic partnerships.

Imitation, we are told, is the sincerest form of flattery. Visegrad Group acolytes would do well to remember this as they bemoan the rival geopolitical groupings springing up across their neighborhood.

January brought the founding of the Slavkov Triangle, between Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia. Poland, which has in recent years appointed itself somewhat haughtily the keeper of the Visegrad flame, howled.

Then, in April we saw the announcement about the Craiova Group of Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia. The southeastern copy of Visegrad goes some way toward formalizing a bloc within the “V4+”, an expanded format that has become increasingly popular as a means for Visegrad to inflate its clout.

Either side of its 24th birthday, and with its effectiveness and influence already on the wane, Visegrad went from being the de facto representative of Central European views to becoming just one of three groups straining to be heard in the cacophony of European diplomacy.

But while they appear to have weakened its position as the region’s foremost lobby bloc, Visegrad has reasons to be proud of its impersonators. Arguably a sign of its relative decline, they are undoubtedly a product of its success. And engaging with their development may prove more rewarding than opposing it.

Punitive drug policies, #discrimination and problems with #access to medicines and important therapy are all driving an epidemic which is unlikely to be contained, world experts say, until governments in countries with the worst problems change key policies and approaches to the disease.